[The following passage comes from an article in the September 1878 issue of the The Graphic. — George P. Landow]
The National Department of Irish Education, whose chief object is to maintain schools in every part of Ireland, is located in Marlborough Street, a thoroughfare parallel to Snckville Street, on the north side of the Liffey. The land on which the buildings are raised formed originally the gardens of the town residence, “Tyrone House,” of a former Marquis of Waterford. The buildings, though unpretentious, are substantial, and suggestive by their number and size of the important functions entrusted to them. Old Tyrone House is chiefly used for the offices of the Executive Commissioners, a building to its right is the Training Establishment, in which upwards of one hundred and eighty teachers are trained annually for the work of conducting model schools. In the background are three juvenile schools, that in the centre, surmounted by a turret and dock-lower, being for infants; while those which lie north and south of it are the boys’ and girls’ schools respectively. More than three thousand pupils of all denominations were entered on the rolls of these seminaries last year. Primarily intended for the poor, these schools have, from the general superiority of the education given in them, attracted large numbers of children front the middle classes, For these a higher scale of fees has been devised. Not merely are drawing, singing, and the use of the sewing machine here taught, but those who can afford to pay reasonably can learn the harmonium, the piano, and even modern languages, from competent teachers. In another building are the “practising schools” commanding an attendance of from sixty to a hundred pupils and presided over by one teacher and an assistant. These are designed to exhibit what an ordinary rural national school, managed by local parties, should be in its arrangements and discipline. In the garden in front of the schools, and facing the Catholic Pro-cathedral on the other side of the street, there is in course of erection a statue, by the Irish sculptor, Farrell, of the late Right Horn Sir Alexander Macdonell, Bart., who, as Resident Commissioner, guided the Administration for more than thirty years. [175]
Bibliography
“Dublin Illustrated.” The Graphic (17 August 1878): 169-81. Internet Archive online version of a copy in the University of Illinois Library. Web. 14 August 2018.
Last modified 14 August 2018